Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Get A Kindle

IF YOU do not own a Kindle, delay no longer. Apart from the convenience and savings, with titles available for small fractions of their ink-and-paper prices, there is the greatest joy of all: immediate access to books otherwise unavailable in Australia for months, if ever.

Let the Finko & Ricketys of this world line their nests and pockets with payments for producing manifestoes about the need to control everyone else's speech. A Kindle cruels them with the soft burble that accompanies its every latest download.

Prof, so very glad you're back. You are my default reading. In culture wars, an exocet missile. The above link was from Tim Blair yesterday - a neat little essay with some very important observations.

from a ranting "christian" point of view it fits with a scripture: "I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean"

The great mass of unwashed suburbanites don't understand money and liberal pleasure. Gaytopia, multiculturalism and planet saving sacrifices are just incomprehensible to the unwashed beyond prahran and brunswick.

anyway Prof, the world possibly has one single Conservative employed in the semi mainstream media: Melvyn Bragg. Is he the world's last man standing? Prof, do you know of any others?

It's Bible or bust Prof - the challenge is to make it comprehensible-coherent-compelling, to wit the world owes you a debt, even if it is the day after tomorrow.

Thanks Prof already have one, I received over whispernet recently the complete works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ($.99 cents AUD) and am currently revisiting a boyhood favorite the adventures of Prof Challenger in a lost world.

I can honestly say, of all presents this one present to me by children, in their parlance it is truly awesome as a tool and entertainment.

I've wanted a Samsung Tab (not an Apple fan) though the Kindle shows a batter life of, wait for it, over a month! That compares with under a day for pads which are basically keyboard-less computers. With that in mind if you really just want to read then Kindle it is.

Love my Kindle, got it eighteen months ago, and a nifty blue case for it and the charger lead. I charge it on my laptop. So easy. Pinky Finky eat your heart out. James Delingpole's book Watermelons only circa seven bucks and heaps available for virtually nix. Am going to get the Hairy Ape the latest whiz-bang Kindle soon for his birthday. A back-lit one would be good, for his reading in bed and letting little Lizzie go to sleep in unlit peace.

Jazza it is an electronic book reader. It doesn't try to be anything else so it does the job of displaying dark grey text on a nearly white screen very well. They are easy to use and extremely portable.

I've had one since they first came out in late 2007 and have used it to read hundreds of novels and a dozens of non-fiction volumes. Depending on your usage its battery lasts around three to four weeks per charge . The Kindle's screen does not glow like a computer, which explains its extraordinary battery life, but instead uses an ‘etch-a-sketch’ like technology to wipe text off and write new text on. The screen can be easily read wherever there is sufficient light to read text on paper.

Books can be purchased using Amazon’s website for a fraction of the cost of dead-tree versions. The website also has a very clever “others who purchased this also purchased…” facility which I have used to discover many authors I would probably never heard of if I was restricted to buying paperbacks at Big W or Dymocks.

I have the “Whispernet 3G” version and use it to quickly search for and “one click purchase” new titles from Amazon’s online book shop wherever there is a mobile phone signal.

All in all an amazing device for around $130 from Dick Smith and Big W etc. As well as from Amazon direct.

My mum is 88, has had one for two years and cannot be parted from her green-leather encased Belkin Book Light equipped charcoal-grey model. Failing mobility threatened to shut her off from her local library and the world of literature she loves. Her Kindle has opened the door to a massive new library filled with many hundreds of thousands of new stories to keep her mind and soul alive.

They should be ‘issued’ to older Australians along with their pension cards and train concessions as a health and well-being necessity.

Another great thing about Kindle is it comes loaded with two dictionaries, The New Oxford American Dictionary and Oxford Dictionary of English. If you come across a strange word, you can check its meaning without turning a page or getting out of bed.I can connect to Kindle Store via free wi-fi from anywhere in my house, as long as my modem/router is powered — computer not needed. I bought Roget's Thesaurus for $1.90. That weighty tome was loaded into the Kindle within seconds, and without adding a single milligram to the Kindle as it rested on my belly.One disappointment: quite a few titles that I wanted are not available to Kindle owners in Australia ... something to do with our parallel publishing restrictions, I believe.

Keep trying Skeeter. When I first got my Kindle I was disappointed that I couldn't download several of my favourite authors. I have no trouble getting those titles now (I'm guessing it's a copyright thing depending on how recently the title was published. I will add my vote for the Kindle. Was snobbish about e-readers for a while and now don't know how I lived without this wonderful gadget. I never leave home without it.

The Kindle is very lightweight and portable, easy to use (it can be tricky to set-up first time around, get a friend to help if you're technologically declined) and the screen is amazingly easy to read.

The screen is like reading off well-printed paper (except you can increase the size of the text at will), far, far less fatiguing than a computer screen, and the battery life is as advertised, ie., you only need to charge it every few weeks.

I hate my Kindle.The Digital Rights Management means that of the $100 worth of books I bought, 60% can't be read. I try to open them, and it tells me that they belong to someone else. Amazon has a blurb about being the 'most customer centric' company in the world. My efforts to get the DRM issue sorted out just gets me cut and pastes from the FAQ page. As well as a continuing flow of ads about books I might like. The one time I spoke to someone, I got an Indian call center operator who could only follow a prompt system.DRM is the curse of the century, where goods you pay for are refused to you for no reason.